This Happened to Me

Sam Tyson

I was playing Jeff Toreki recently in a RB playtest scenario. I repaired a Russian 45LL gun in rally phase, and told the crew to shoot well because they would die soon. There were two PzIIIs 4 or 5 hexes away, sitting behind some dispersed smoke. I targeted the farthest tank, and rolled for APCR (4 in 1942), but did not have any. I then hit the tank with a regular AP round, but bounced my 11 TK off of his 6 AF. I contemplated the dire straights ahead for this crew, mulling over options of trying for DI on one of those tanks, or pivoting in the rubble to fire at a motion-hull down-OT-133 FT tank 2 hexes away, with circled-8 turret armor. Both of those options were dismal (DI final TH 3, needing hull loc) or (pivoting net TH 2), so I proceeded to resume firing AP on the original PzIII.

I drop the dice in the cup, and soon see a pair of snake-eyes staring back at me. I sheepishly grin, and look over at Jeff, whose eyes are rolling back in his head. The CH TK is low enough to burn. With ROF, I fire on the other PzIII, needing an 8 to hit and a 3 or 5 to kill. Once again, I drop the dice into the cup. This time the snake-eyes are burning a hole into Jeff's skull, as the CH TK DR burns the second PzIII as well.

The story ends with a gun pivot to get off a shot at the FT behemoth, but this time I don't get the CH, and bounce a shot off the wall. The IF shot danced by, and snake-eyes appeared at the end, but one die made a final clink in the cup as it rolled from a 1 to a 2. That was enough to make us both laugh, me hysterically, and Jeff with huge relief. The TK shot bounced off the turret, and soon Jeff avenged his panzer crews.